whispered.

"Oh, Mrs. Corbett," he whispered in return, "I've been an awful fool!
Did she tell you? Will she ever forgive me, do you think?"

"Ask her!" said Mrs. Corbett, pointing up the narrow stairs.

CHAPTER XII.

_WHEN THE DAY BROKE_.

All night long the tide of fortune ebbed and flowed around the table
where Rance Belmont and John Corbett played the game which is still
remembered and talked of by the Black Creek old settlers when their
thoughts run upon old times.

Just as the daylight began to show blue behind the frosted panes, and
the yellow lamplight grew pale and sickly, Rance Belmont rose and
stretched his stiffened limbs.

"I am sorry to bring such a pleasant gathering to an end," he said,
with his inscrutable smile, "but I believe I am done." He was searching
through his pockets as he spoke. "Yes, I believe the game is over."

"You're a mighty good loser, Rance," George Sims declared with
admiration.

The other men rose, too, and went out to feed their horses, for the
storm was over and they must soon be on the road.

When John Corbett and Rance Belmont went out into the kitchen, Maggie
Corbett was chopping up potatoes in the frying-pan with a baking-powder
can, looking as fresh and rested as if she had been asleep all night,
instead of holding a lonely vigil beside a stovepipe-hole.

John Corbett advanced to the table and solemnly deposited the green box
thereon; then with painstaking deliberation he arranged the contents of
his pockets in piles. Rance Belmont's watch lay by itself; then the
bills according to denomination; last of all the silver and a slip of
brown paper with writing on it in lead-pencil.

When all was complete, he nodded to Maggie to take charge of the
proceedings.

Maggie hastily inspected the contents of the green box, and having
satisfied herself that it was all there, she laid it up, high and dry,
on the clock shelf.

Then she hastily looked at the piles and read the slip of brown paper,
which seemed to stand for one sorrel pacer, one cutter, one set single
harness, two goat robes.

"Rance," said Maggie, slowly, "we don't want a cent that don't belong
to us. I put Da at playing with you in the hope he would win all away
from you that you had, for we were bound to stop you from goin' away
with that dear girl if it could be done, and we knew you couldn't go
broke; but now you can't do any harm if you had all the money in the
world, for she's just gone home a f